Dropbox's version history quietly deletes anything older than 30 days on the standard paid plans — and charges per seat. Keeply keeps every save forever with a single flat team price, and your files stay on your own NAS.
Free forever for personal use · Team $25/mo flat (coming soon).
Dropbox Standard, Plus, and Essentials plans automatically delete file versions older than 30 days. The higher-tier Advanced plan extends this to 180 days — still finite, and priced at $24 per user per month. For a 6-person studio, that's $1,440 per year in per-seat fees just to keep half a year of history. Keeply stores unlimited version history on storage you already own, with team pricing that doesn't balloon with headcount.
Source: Dropbox Help Center — version history retention per plan tier
Based on public product information as of April 2026. Keeply rows reflect shipping v1.0.10.
| Feature | Dropbox Business (Standard / Advanced) |
Keeply (recommended) |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $15–$24 per seat per month | Free forever · Team $25/mo flat (coming soon) · $599 Perpetual Founding Member (limited 500) |
| Version history retention | 30 days (Standard) / 180 days (Advanced) | Unlimited — every save kept forever |
| Per-seat fees | Yes — scales with team size | No — one flat team price |
| Visual file diff | Preview-only (no side-by-side changes) | Side-by-side diff for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, images |
| Where files live | Dropbox cloud | Your local disk, NAS, USB, Gitea, or GitHub |
| Version save descriptions | None (auto-versions only) | Add a note every time you save — find decisions months later |
| Works offline | Sync only — no offline versioning | Versions tracked locally, syncs when reconnected |
| Large binary files | Counts against storage cap | 38 formats + >10 MB detected silently; no manual LFS setup |
| Per-project history view | Mixed with all of Dropbox | Focused per-project timeline and file tree |
| Vendor lock-in risk | Files in Dropbox's proprietary sync system | Files stay as regular files you can open in Explorer/Finder |
Pick your most-edited project folder — your current deliverables, active client work, or shared design files. Keep Dropbox sync running during the transition; Keeply works alongside it.
Download Keeply, open the folder you picked, click Start protecting. Versioning begins immediately from the current state.
In Keeply, add a backup target: your office NAS, a USB drive, or a GitHub repo. Keeply pushes every version there — no Dropbox dependency for history.
Use Dropbox just for real-time sync between devices (free tier does this). Keeply handles the actual version history you rely on, at a fraction of the cost.
Free download for Windows and macOS. Thirty-second setup. No account required — just install and open your project folder.